Best Cheap Cat Food: How to Get Real Value for Money

Good cheap cat food exists, and the cheapest food per day is often a big bag of dry food from a mainstream brand or a supermarket own label. What matters is that the pack says complete, that your cat eats it happily, and that you compare the cost per day rather than the price of the bag. For most budgets, a large bag of Whiskas or IAMS dry food plus a bulk box of wet pouches gives you the best value.

How to spot good value in cheap cat food

A cheap food is only good value if your cat can live on it and actually eats it. Four checks on the pack tell you most of what you need to know.

1. Complete or complementary: check this first

Every pet food label in the UK has to say whether the food is complete or complementary. According to UK Pet Food, the trade body for pet food makers, a complete food meets your cat's daily nutritional needs on its own, as long as you follow the feeding guide. A complementary food has to be combined with other food. Treats, toppers and mixers are complementary.

This is where cheap food can trip you up. Plenty of wet foods are complementary, and Which? warns that many wet foods are not complete. Some popular tins of chicken or fish in broth, such as Applaws, are sold as complementary food that you feed alongside a complete food. They look like a meal, but they cannot be your cat's only food. If you want to feed the same food every day, it has to say complete.

In the US the wording is different. Look for a statement that the food is "complete and balanced" according to AAFCO nutrient profiles. A food labelled "for intermittent or supplemental feeding only" is the American version of complementary.

2. What the meat claims on the front really mean

The words on the front of the pack follow fixed rules in the UK and the EU. Purina and UK Pet Food explain them like this:

• "Chicken flavour": there may be no chicken in it at all, only a flavouring.
• "Flavoured with chicken": less than 4% chicken.
• "With chicken": at least 4% chicken.
• "Rich in chicken" or "high in chicken": at least 14% chicken.
• "Chicken menu", "chicken dinner" or "chicken cat food": at least 26% chicken.

Most budget pouches say "with". That means 4% of the named meat, and the rest of the meat can come from other animals. For a complete food that is fine. It also explains why the picture of a chicken leg on the box tells you very little.

3. Read the ingredient list

Ingredients are listed in order of weight, heaviest first. Cheaper foods often use category names such as "meat and animal derivatives", "cereals" or "derivatives of vegetable origin". UK Pet Food says these categories are legal and safe and let makers use whatever ingredients are seasonally available, which keeps prices down. The downside for you is that you cannot see exactly which animal or which part is in the bag.

A quick way to compare two budget foods is to look at what comes first. Whiskas dry food starts with cereals. IAMS dry food starts with dried chicken and turkey at 40%. Both are complete. You simply get more meat at the top of the list with IAMS, and you pay a little more per day for it.

4. Work out the cost per day, not per bag

The price on the shelf says nothing about how long a pack lasts. To compare fairly:

1. Find the feeding guide on the pack and look up your cat's weight. Use the grams or pouches per day.
2. Divide the pack weight by that daily amount. That gives you the number of days the pack lasts.
3. Divide the price by that number of days.

An example: Whiskas suggests 45 to 75 g of its dry food a day depending on your cat's size, so a 7 kg bag lasts one cat roughly 93 to 155 days. IAMS suggests 50 to 65 g a day for a 4 kg cat, so its 10 kg bag lasts that cat about five to six and a half months. A bigger, pricier bag can easily work out cheaper per day.

Two things make cost per day go wrong. The first is overfeeding. UK Pet Food figures quoted by Which? say around 43% of UK cats are overweight or obese, and a heaped scoop every morning is money as well as weight. Weigh the daily portion once so you know what the right amount looks like. The second is buying a bag so large that it goes stale or passes its date before your cat finishes it. Which? recommends buying only what your cat can eat before the food expires.

Wet or dry food on a budget

Dry food is by far the cheapest way to feed a cat. In the Which? price check (prices tracked from October 2025 to January 2026 for a 4 kg adult outdoor cat), the cheapest wet food cost roughly £1 a day more than the cheapest dry food. Dry food is also easier to store and portion.

Wet food has its own advantages. It adds water to your cat's diet and many cats find it tastier. If you feed mostly dry food, make sure your cat always has fresh water, because dry food provides very little moisture.

A sensible middle way is to mix both. Vets quoted by Which? suggest a mix of wet and dry food, and it keeps costs down compared with feeding only wet. If you mix, feed less of each. The IAMS feeding guide, for example, says to halve the recommended amount of both foods when you combine them. Otherwise your cat gets two full meals a day and you pay for both.

Supermarket own brands: Aldi, Tesco and co

Own-label cat food is often the cheapest complete food you can buy. In Which?'s comparison of eight UK supermarkets plus Pets at Home and Zooplus, the cheapest dry foods per day were own brands from Tesco and Sainsbury's, alongside Lidl's Coshida. The cheapest wet food came from own brands too, including Asda's Tiger range and Tesco's own label.

Aldi's own cat food is sold under the Vitacat name, with pouches and dry food in the regular range. Which? includes Vitacat in its brand ratings, which are only open to members. In the price table, Vitacat dry food worked out more expensive per day than the Tesco and Sainsbury's dry food in that period, so the cheapest supermarket is not always the one with the cheapest cat food.

Which? also found that supermarkets are often more expensive per day than specialist pet retailers, partly because they sell fewer large packs. Own brands are worth trying, with the same rules as above: check the word complete, check the feeding guide and do the cost per day sum.

The best cheap cat foods

These four are complete foods for adult cats from one year old, sold in large packs that bring the cost per day down. We chose them using the Which? price and owner survey, the manufacturers' ingredient lists and feeding guides, and what owners say in reviews.

The four foods side by side

Ingredients and feeding guides from the Amazon UK listings and retailer pages for each product, checked in October 2026. Durations are for one cat fed only that food.

More ways to spend less on cat food

• Buy the biggest pack your cat can finish in time. Bulk bags and boxes bring the cost per day down, as long as the food stays fresh. Keep dry food in its bag inside an airtight container.
• Test before you go bulk. A 72-pouch box is no bargain if your cat refuses it. Buy a small pack first.
• Measure portions. Overfeeding is the most common hidden cost and it is bad for your cat's weight.
• Mix wet and dry, and halve both. You get some of the benefits of wet food at a fraction of the cost.
• Treat treats as extras. Treats are complementary food, so they add cost without replacing a meal. If you do buy them, see our guide to the best treats for cats.
• Be careful with leftovers. Scraps from your plate don't replace a complete meal, and some foods are unsafe for cats. Check our list of what human food cats can eat.
• Switch gradually. When you change to a cheaper food, Which? suggests no more than 25% new food for the first couple of days, building up over about a week. A sudden switch can upset your cat's stomach and leave you with a bag it won't eat.

Is cheap cat food bad for cats?

Not if it is complete and your cat does well on it. UK Pet Food says all complete pet foods are formulated to meet a pet's nutritional needs and fall under the same strict regulations, whichever way their label is written. The vets quoted by Which? agreed that the most important thing is finding a food your cat eats and thrives on, and then keeping an eye on your cat. Signs that a food suits your cat include plenty of energy, good sleep, a healthy weight and regular firm stools.

Some cats do need something specific. Kittens need a kitten food, and cats with allergies, a sensitive stomach or a medical condition may need a particular diet. Ask your vet in those cases. For cats with digestive trouble, see our guide to the best dry cat food for sensitive stomachs. If your cat suddenly stops eating after a food change, read why your cat is not eating and talk to your vet if your cat keeps refusing food. For the basics of feline nutrition, see our guide to good cat food.

Frequently asked questions